William Safire

William Safire (17 December 1929-27 September 2009) was an American libertarian syndicated political columnist for The New York Times and a presidential speechwriter.

Biography
William Safire was born in New York City, New York in 1929, and he became a trustee of Syracuse University after his graduation. From 1955 to 1960, he worked as a public relations executive, and he worked on Richard Nixon's 1960 and 1968 Republican presidential campaigns, serving as a speechwriter for Nixon and Spiro Agnew. In 1973, he joined The New York Times as a political columnist, and he also frequently appeared on ABC's Meet the Press. Safire identified as a "libertarian conservative", and, while he voted for Bill Clinton in 1992, he became a fierce critic of him and his wife Hillary Clinton, whom he controversially called a "congenital liar". Safire also supported the Iraq War, saying that a democratic Iraq would "cheer its liberators" and lead the Arab world toward democracy; he was also staunchly pro-Israel. He retired his column in 2005, and he died in Rockville, Maryland in 2009 at the age of 79.